


The things I do for you

by lindsayc



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29519574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindsayc/pseuds/lindsayc
Summary: When James was nine, Lily Evans broke his heart.Fifteen years later, she reappeared in his life, just as beautiful and vibrant and unattainable as ever. This time, James was determined not to screw things up. As long as she didn't hate him anymore, he was happy with just being her friend.That is, until he somehow found himself agreeing to be her fake date to her sister's wedding.What on earth was he getting himself into?
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, background Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	1. First crush

Everyone remembers their first crush. Maybe you were too young to recognise it as a crush, but looking back everyone can name that person, the first person they _liked_ in that indefinable, terrible, wonderful way.

James' first crush had ruined his life.

Okay, well maybe that was a bit dramatic, but it had certainly felt that way when he was nine.

His life had been perfect, as only a nine-year-old's life can be. His parents had thrown him this really cool birthday party for his ninth birthday and he had invited the whole class and there had been a huge bouncy castle and a cake shaped like a dragon and everyone had thought it was amazing.

Everyone except Severus Snape, who had made a snide comment about bouncy castles being for babies, but James, in a moment of glorious inspiration had retorted:

"Whatever you say, _Snivellus_."

To a group of nine-year-olds, this had been the absolute height of humour, and had confirmed James' reputation as the funniest person in the class. The name Snivellus had stuck, and people had stopped inviting Severus to birthday parties after that.

If James was the funniest person in the class then his best friend, Sirius, was the coolest. He had this bike with red and orange flames painted on it and he would do tricks on it at the skatepark near the school. Sometimes he would convince James to sneak out of the playground with him at lunchtime and go to the skatepark; James would feel a twinge of anxiety in his stomach at the idea that a teacher might catch them, but he never refused. Sirius made him feel cool and rebellious. 

So that was the way life was. His classmates liked him (except Snivellus, but he didn't count); his teachers liked him (but not enough that he seemed like a nerd); his parents doted on him and bought him anything he wanted. His life was perfect.

And then Lily Evans showed up.

He noticed her the moment he walked into class that morning. She was standing by the teacher's desk, clutching a bright orange school bag and looking like she was trying very hard not to look nervous. As he walked in, she glanced up and smiled at him and his heart fluttered.

He tossed his bag onto his chair without even greeting Sirius, who was swinging on the back two legs of his chair and tossing pencils in the general direction of Severus, though his aim wasn't particularly good. Then he marched confidently up to Lily and stuck out his hand.

"Hello," he said, "I'm James. James Potter."

Lily took his hand solemly.

"Hello James James Potter," she replied, "I'm Lily."

"I like your bag," James said, "You obviously decided to try and blend in on your first day."

Lily laughed. James' heart did a backflip.

He didn't have the chance to say anything else because at that point the teacher walked in, and directed them all to sit in their seats. James didn't mind, though, because he knew that Lily was going to like him. She had laughed! She thought he was funny! Everyone thought he was funny, but somehow that wasn't very important anymore compared with the fact that _Lily_ thought he was funny.

Then the teacher did the unforgivable. She sent Lily to sit in the empty seat beside Severus. _Severus!_

No, it was fine, it would be okay. He had to stay calm. Lily seemed smart. She would see straightaway how terrible Snivellus was, and then she would be even happier about being friends with James. He just had to survive until morning interval and then he would be able to talk to her again. Waiting seemed like the hardest thing in the world, but he would make it.

The teacher was talking, but James didn't hear a word. He couldn't take his eyes off Lily. She was taking an assortment of stationery out of her bag and arranging neatly it on her desk. A lock of red hair fell across her face and she tucked it behind her ear. James had never seen anything so captivating.

Then Severus leaned towards her and muttered something.

She laughed.

James' world stopped.

That was when it was all over, really. He didn't accept it immediately. He still tried to talk to her in the playground, and it briefly seemed like she might still like him. But Severus attached himself to her side, and James just couldn't stop himself from lashing out. He couldn't understand it. She was clever and sweet and popular among their classmates. She could have been friends with anyone in the class, but from the very first day she was fiercely loyal to "Sev", as she called him. The moment she realised how much James hated her new best friend, she grew cold towards him and would get up and walk away if he tried to sit beside her or start a conversation.

He kept trying. Sirius teased him incessantly, but he didn't care. He didn't care that the whole class knew he had a crush on Lily Evans. He just wanted her to see how much better he was than stupid Snivellus with his greasy hair and his sarcastic comments and his ill-fitting clothes.

One day, almost six months after Lily's first day, James and Sirius had played a particularly nasty prank on Severus. He couldn't remember the details, but Severus had run away in tears, and half an hour later Lily had marched up to the two of them in the playground.

"Hey, Evans," James said, with a cocky grin. His latest tactic for trying to seem cool was referring to everyone by their surnames. "Have you decided you want to go out with me?"

Until now, Lily's anger had been contained to cold glares and the occasional stinging retort. Now, however, the fury radiated off her like fire. She took a step closer to James.

"James Potter, you are _despicable_ ," she said, her voice low and dangerous, "You're a mean, arrogant person and you think you're better than everyone else just because your parents have loads of money and you make horrible jokes. Just because Sev's parents are poor doesn't mean you get to treat him like dirt and if you ever go near him again I will _hurt_ you. I wouldn't go out with you if you were the last person alive in the world and I will never, _ever_ like you."

She turned on her heel and walked away across the playground.

James' heart shattered.

He never tried to talk to Lily again, and a year later she moved to another school.

He left Severus alone, too. It wasn't (as Sirius used to tease him) because he was actually scared of Lily's threat about hurting him. It was because her words echoed in his head, leaving a heavy feeling of guilt in the pit of his stomach. He'd never even thought about how much money Severus' family had, but once Lily had pointed it out, it seemed so obvious. Severus never had nice things. He never had parties, or even invited anyone to his house.

James had never thought about how lucky he was.

He didn't learn the word "privilege" until many years later, when the memory of Lily Evans had all but faded from his mind, but she was the first one to introduce him to the concept. He would never have admitted it, even to himself, but her voice lived in the back of his mind long after he had stopped thinking about her, niggling at his conscience every time he was tempted to put somebody else down to make himself feel bigger.

Mostly he forgot her. She was his first heartbreak, and the bitterest, but she was not the last. He threw himself into relationships without fear, enjoying them wholeheartedly while they were good and mourning them wholeheartedly when they ended, but always recovering quickly. Deep down he knew that no failed relationship would ever hurt as much as Lily's rejection had hurt, so there was nothing to fear, right?

After all, you couldn't have your heart broken twice by the same girl.

Could you?


	2. Reunion

James was late.

This was not unusual. Sharing a flat with his three best friends was everything he'd ever dreamed it would be, and their parties were incredible, but sometimes it was also a bit of a nightmare. They were never all on the same schedule but somehow they did all seem to need the bathroom at the same time in the morning. Sirius had managed to claim it first this morning and his shower routine took forever. Then he hadn't been able to find his bag because drunk Sirius had decided it would be fun to build a fort in the living room three days ago and then no one had wanted to tidy it up, so everything was permanently buried under a pile of cushions and blankets. Plus Remus and Peter had tried to drag him into some kind of argument about the chore rota; in the end he'd only managed to escape by agreeing to take on extra toilet-cleaning duties.

Anyway, he was late. He'd considered skipping this lecture altogether but it was the first one of the semester and that seemed like a bad precedent to set. This was his final year of university and he had promised himself he was going to be responsible and work hard this year.

As he sprinted across the campus, he wondered whether maybe that had been a bit optimistic.

He arrived at the lecture hall just as the lecturer was standing up to speak, and managed to sneak in quietly at the back. He pulled out a notebook then searched through his bag for a pen, but couldn't find a single thing to write with. Well this was a fantastic start for new, responsible James.

Cursing inwardly, he tapped the shoulder of the student in front of him, a girl with long red hair, to ask her if he could borrow a pen.

She turned around and his heart stopped.

"Hi!" she whispered brightly, "Can I help you?"

James had forgotten how to speak.

"Are you okay...?" She paused, then looked more closely at him. "Wait ... James?"

James nodded, and waited for her polite smile to turn to a scowl. Instead, it widened.

"I can't believe it's you!" she said, "What a funny coincidence!"

"Yeah." James finally found his voice. "Umm ... sorry to bother you but could I borrow something to write with?"

"Of course!" She pulled a pen from a pocket of her bag and handed it to him, then turned to the front to focus on the lecture.

As it turned out, the pen was completely uneccessary because James didn't write down a single thing for the next hour. In fact, he didn't hear a word the lecturer said. All he could do was stare at the long red hair in front of him.

Lily Evans was _here_.

* * *

James Potter was here.

This had never happened to Lily before. She had moved schools countless times as a child, never in one place for more than two years at the absolute maximum, so she had become very accustomed to meeting new people. She never forgot a face or a name, but she had also never had the chance to hold onto friends for long, apart from a few who had become pen pals after her departure. Sev still emailed her now and again, but she had never just run into an old classmate.

Not that she and James had been _friends_ , exactly, but that had been a very long time ago, and it was exciting to meet someone who had known her all the way back then. University had been the first time she'd had the chance to make deeper friendships, but she was always a little jealous of the people she knew who were still in touch with childhood friends. They would reminisce over stories about when they were teenagers, or even younger, and she would feel as though she was missing some life experience.

What should she do? Would it be weird for her to ask James if he wanted to hang out? It probably would. He'd looked a bit freaked out when she got so excited about seeing him. He probably barely remembered her, and why would he want to hang out with some random girl he used to argue with when he was nine? 

By the time the lecture ended she still hadn't made up her mind what to do. She took her time packing up her things, letting the other students filter out of the hall. When she finally turned to leave, James was still there, twirling her pen between his fingers. He grinned and held it out to her. 

"You always did have enough stationery to equip an entire army," he said as she took the pen, "I remember you used to line up all your pens and pencils so neatly, and heaven help anyone who touched them." 

The feeling of someone remembering something about her from so many years ago made warmth pool in Lily's stomach. 

She smiled.

"Can I walk you to your next class?" she asked. 


	3. Reminiscing

It turned out that James' next class wasn't for another hour, and Lily didn't have anything until the afternoon, so they found themselves wandering aimlessly around campus, reminiscing and catching up. James laughed at Lily's shockingly accurate impression of their old PE teacher. Lily listened intently to James' story of how Sirius had started a food fight at lunchtime a few months after she had left.

"Sirius was so funny!" she said. James shot her a disbelieving look.

"You think so?" he asked, "I always thought you didn't like him very much."

"Yeah well," Lily shrugged, "He was a bit of a prat sometimes. And I took the rules very seriously at that point, so I felt like I had to disapprove of him disrupting class so much, but I secretly enjoyed his pranks. Well, the silly ones. Not the mean ones."

"You didn't like _me_ very much back then," James said, sneaking a look sideways to see her face. He'd been avoiding bringing this up, wondering whether maybe she'd forgotten, but it seemed impossible to ignore it completely. "In fact, I think your exact description of me was 'despicable, mean and arrogant'. Or, you know, something along those lines."

Lily put a hand to her mouth.

"Did I really say that?" she asked, "Gosh, I was a very strong-minded nine-year-old."

James laughed, a little uncomfortably.

"Yeah, kind of broke my heart," he forced himself to say it lightly, turn it into a joke, "Though I think I did have to go and look up what 'despicable' meant!"

"Well I apologise for being so blunt," Lily said with a laugh, "But from what I remember you thought bullying my best friend was a good way of flirting with me, so I can't take all the blame."

"I don't know if I'd call it bullying exactly," James said, trying not to sound too defensive, "He gave as good as he got. He could be pretty mean sometimes too, and you never yelled at him. I guess you didn't notice because he was your friend."

"I noticed." Lily's voice was quieter now, more serious. "I know he goaded you on purpose sometimes, and I did used to talk to him about it. The difference was that you had so much more power than him. That time he stole your schoolbag and chucked it in the school swimming pool, your parents bought you a new, more expensive one and marched up to the school the next day to demand that he be put in detention for a week. When you retaliated by filling his bag with paint he just kept using it anyway and had no lunch money for two weeks because that was the only way his parents could affort to replace his books. And all your friends always used to take your side too. I know now that it was a bit unreasonable for me to expect you to notice all that when you were just a kid, but at the time I guess I had higher expectations of you than him because I thought you could afford to be the bigger person."

There was a tense silence. James cursed himself for bringing up Severus. What had he been thinking?

"Anyway," Lily said, more cheerfully, "It was a long time ago. Sorry for getting so intense. Are you still in touch with Sirius? Any idea what he's up to nowadays?"

James laughed.

"Well I'm not sure what he's doing right at this exact moment, but this morning his main purpose in life was waking me up by singing Abba songs as loudly and obnoxiously as he possibly could."

Lily stopped walking and stared at him.

"You live with _Sirius_?" she said, "I'm so jealous!"

"You're jealous that I live with Sirius? You do remember that this is the same person who once stuck chewing gum in your hair? Are you sure you're not thinking of someone else?"

"Okay, no, I would absolutely not want to live with Sirius. That sounds like a nightmare. I'm just a little jealous that you're still so close to someone you knew back then. I've never had a friendship that lasted that long."

"Oh." That made James feel a little sad. As annoying as Sirius could be, their friendship was one of the most important things in his life. They knew everything about each other, had been there for each other's defining moments. "Well," he said, "You should drop by some time. I'm sure he'd love to see you. Just don't say anything about finding him funny - he's bigheaded enough as it is."

"I'd really like that." Lily glanced at her watch. "Your class will be starting pretty soon. Should we head that way?"

For the second time that day James considered skipping class, but decided it was more important for Lily to see him as responsible and hard-working.

"It was really nice catching up with you, James," she said, as the paused at the door to the lecture hall, "What do you say we try to be more mature than our nine-year-old selves? Friends?"

She held out her hand. James shook it with a smile.

"Friends," he agreed.


End file.
